[262]

(04-20-2016 09:10 PM)Anabasis to Desta Wrote:  

Great.

But isn't love by definition a form of "letting go"?

I don't agree with some of the posters on here that think developing feelings for a girl is wrong. Depends on our goals. My goal is not to become some Alpha, Mack, Player or Pimp. It does not suit my personality or life goals.

True love is one of my highest aspirations in life. Even the 'Dark Triad" Heartiste wrote this about love ...

What is unique about love is that it alone among all the human desires defines by its absence the utterly meaningless life. With love, the poor person can feel rich as if the struggles of his survival were minor inconveniences. With love, the old person forgets his age. With love, the young person sheds his angst. A man can amass a kingdom’s fortune and an emperor’s power but without love his worldly successes stand like hollow totems to unhappiness. What good is anything if it doesn’t ultimately reach a conclusion in love? The wealthy businessman who spends all his hours in his office and wastes his years whistling past the grave being too busy for love is a loser no less than the unloved degenerate street bum.

So my question is how can do you control emotion without being controlled while at the same time being capable of love?

To answer your question, you never let go, at least fully.

[hydrogonian]

(04-21-2016 12:22 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

You can love a sexless woman unconditionally and be celibate as such but that doesn't mean your balls wont turn blue.

That's true. Though, it doesn't negate the fact, in my perspective, that true love will not be anchored in the sexual act.

That doesn't mean that you don't have sex with her. It only means that you'd love her whether or not you are having sex with her. This also transcends "game" wherein you might want to adjust your feelings for a result. A to D was feeling some angst over the possibility "true love". Thus, blue ball considerations didn't measure into the equation for me.

Quote:

You could rationalise that joy the love brings you trumps the joy you'd have while rooting another person, but love does not simply erase all other biological desires.

True. But you can also have platonic relationships that include 'true love', sexual relationships that are absent of love, and perhaps the ideal relationship that includes both true love and sex. And you can have some of these relationships at the same time.

Quote:

As for the OP, monogamous relationships are by definition ownerships of each other. Again, anyone looking to somehow cheat their biological urge to dominate their partner's reproductive organs is pushing the psychological shit uphill. Not to say it's impossible but it's certainly unnatural.

For the sake of completeness in commenting on your post (though this latter sentiment was not addressed to me), I don't disagree with the essence of what you are saying in terms of dominance, though perhaps I don't agree with the 'ownership' sentiment that I find psychologically unnecessary and more of a legal concept that does not apply legally in this case. I think dominance is apt, though. There might be a hair's width difference between 'dominance' and 'ownership' in a relationship, but it might be an important difference.

I don't see anything wrong with dominance. It is healthy and doesn't lead to 'game' issues. I think that ownership does lead to 'game' issues for men, in my observation and perhaps even old experience. I described my issues with it in a prior post.

In all, the issues under discussion aren't life threatening and we'll all work out where we fall in terms of our opinion in the relationship lab. My assertions were only food for thought.

[birthday cat]

(04-19-2016 11:16 PM)BassPlayaYo Wrote:  

I think the first thing one would need to do is get past the notion of being able to own/control someone. IMO, when one's self confidence is fully on board this isn't a think that one thinks about or struggles with.

(04-19-2016 11:52 PM)Requiem Wrote:  

^ that sounds like typical "advice" from a wimminz' magazine.

It sounds like common sense to me. And it sounds like a concise version of what Requiem described in his longer post (#15).

The idea of owning a woman is something that plays out after the women is attracted to the man, respects the man, loves the man, etc. Having self-confidence and not being possessive or controlling seem to be essential for the process to occur.

Perhaps it is just semantics but I see a big difference between the words "controlling" and "influencing". Trying to control a woman's behavior sounds like anti-game to me. It signals neediness and lower status which will eventually push the women to do exactly what the man doesn't want her to do.

[General Stalin]

(04-20-2016 09:10 PM)Anabasis to Desta Wrote:  

(04-20-2016 08:22 PM)General Stalin Wrote:  

This thread has made me refelect a bit on myself and where I currently stand in regards to relationships with women. Years and years ago I was a total sucker and would fall for a pretty face and kind words very easily. Needless to say I found myself getting burned a lot. Recently I went through a phase where I was afraid I have killed and buried that part of me so deep that I was almost incapable of growing attached to a woman again - now I see I have evolved as a man and will only allow myself to love a woman who is worthy enough of my investment and commitment. Where before emotion controlled me, now I control emotion. This has been a good realization.

Great.

But isn't love by definition a form of "letting go"?

I don't agree with some of the posters on here that think developing feelings for a girl is wrong. Depends on our goals. My goal is not to become some Alpha, Mack, Player or Pimp. It does not suit my personality or life goals.

<snip>

So my question is how can do you control emotion without being controlled while at the same time being capable of love?

I don't think anyone in this membership(established membership) thinks that catching feelings for a girl is wrong. I think it is impossible to properly bond with a person and much less start and raise a healthy family with a person you are not deeply connected and vulnerable to emotionally.

When I say having control over one's emotions I don't mean being able to turn them on and off like a faucet. There are some men on this board who may say that is the ideal of being "alpha" but that's not it. It's the tempering of your emotions - being able to hold back when necessary. Holding the reigns to oneself.

I can certainly fall for a girl and allow her to hurt me, but instead of childishly falling for a girl that shows signs that she would be a poor longterm partner, I can now instead stop myself from developing feelings for a girl who I can objectively assess would not be good for me in the long run.

That doesn't mean this is foolproof. You never really know a person which is really where the beauty of "love" comes into play. It's about trusting someone else and allowing yourself to be vulnerable to them despite that fact that you do not have control of them. People can and do turn on eachother and take advantage of eachother. It's the chaos and uncertainty that makes it beautiful and admirable.

I also agree that despite all the hard talk in this community about being stone cold location independent lone-wolf players, it's certainly not for most people, and the genuine reciprocal love of a good woman is unequaled in this world.

Pair bonding and family are two of the most important intrinsic values of being a human being, and they are not fully attainable without having a woman.

[Requiem]

(04-20-2016 09:10 PM)Anabasis to Desta Wrote:  

True love is one of my highest aspirations in life. Even the 'Dark Triad" Heartiste wrote this about love ...

What is unique about love is that it alone among all the human desires defines by its absence the utterly meaningless life. With love, the poor person can feel rich as if the struggles of his survival were minor inconveniences. With love, the old person forgets his age. With love, the young person sheds his angst. A man can amass a kingdom’s fortune and an emperor’s power but without love his worldly successes stand like hollow totems to unhappiness. What good is anything if it doesn’t ultimately reach a conclusion in love? The wealthy businessman who spends all his hours in his office and wastes his years whistling past the grave being too busy for love is a loser no less than the unloved degenerate street bum.

My god, that is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read.
Heartiste is really one of the few people I know of who I'd be genuinely interested in meeting to learn about his life and to discuss philosophy and politics with. His mind is a goldmine.

[NASA Test Pilot]

(04-20-2016 09:10 PM)Anabasis to Desta Wrote:  

(04-20-2016 08:22 PM)General Stalin Wrote:  

This thread has made me refelect a bit on myself and where I currently stand in regards to relationships with women. Years and years ago I was a total sucker and would fall for a pretty face and kind words very easily. Needless to say I found myself getting burned a lot. Recently I went through a phase where I was afraid I have killed and buried that part of me so deep that I was almost incapable of growing attached to a woman again - now I see I have evolved as a man and will only allow myself to love a woman who is worthy enough of my investment and commitment. Where before emotion controlled me, now I control emotion. This has been a good realization.

Great.

But isn't love by definition a form of "letting go"?

I don't agree with some of the posters on here that think developing feelings for a girl is wrong. Depends on our goals. My goal is not to become some Alpha, Mack, Player or Pimp. It does not suit my personality or life goals.

True love is one of my highest aspirations in life. Even the 'Dark Triad" Heartiste wrote this about love ...

What is unique about love is that it alone among all the human desires defines by its absence the utterly meaningless life. With love, the poor person can feel rich as if the struggles of his survival were minor inconveniences. With love, the old person forgets his age. With love, the young person sheds his angst. A man can amass a kingdom’s fortune and an emperor’s power but without love his worldly successes stand like hollow totems to unhappiness. What good is anything if it doesn’t ultimately reach a conclusion in love? The wealthy businessman who spends all his hours in his office and wastes his years whistling past the grave being too busy for love is a loser no less than the unloved degenerate street bum.

So my question is how can do you control emotion without being controlled while at the same time being capable of love?

Sometimes we need to clarify those feelings within ourselves. As I reflect upon myself, I often think that it is an unconscious desire to have the level of trust and loyalty that I share with men that verges on altruism with women, but this is misplaced as I am confusing different types of love. My key is that I recall my Greek and keep in mind the relations between, Agape, Philia, Storge, Eros, Ludus, and Pragma. Part of my synthetic mind wants to combine them, but it is not practical. Practically speaking I must go forward and continue fulfilling my purpose and do the activities that motivate me. How she inspires in fulfilling my purpose and executing my activities become my central pillars.

The love at the level of Agape is somewhat transcendent and perhaps unconditional and often applies in the relationship between a man and his creator, although Homer did use the word as a verb (to greet with affection). Philia relates to the love we feel for our brothers literally and figuratively as friends including comrades in arms. Aristotle discusses this as wanting for someone what one thinks good, for their sake and not for one's own, and being inclined, so far as one can, to do such things for him. This type of love can verge on the altruistic (or turn more toward oneself in an egoistic or narcissistic manner). Perhaps there is a conduit via altruism to Agape. Aristotle divides friendships into three types, based on the motive for forming them: friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure and friendships of the good.

Storge is often considered a natural affection along the lines of the feeling you have toward your offspring or family and perhaps friends or those in longer term committed relationships. Eros is the love of sexual passion or an intimate love. I think it is in the intimacy that men (including myself) become more confused, because men can partake of the transcendent with their world (to include ideas) as females can partake of the transcendent with their children. Interestingly the Greeks viewed Eros as potentially dangerous as it often dealt with a loss of control that could be frightening. Ludus is a playful love that is often used to refer to children playing or young lovers. Pragma is a mature love that is often characteristic of couples who have pair bonded for life and have live a large portion of their lives in the company of one another.

Plato did take the concept further and discussed how it is initially felt for a person, but with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself (literally beauty partaking of the Form, The Beautiful). Plato does not talk of physical attraction as a necessary part of love rather he argues that Eros helps the soul recall knowledge of Beauty, and contributes to an understanding of spiritual Truth.